51: The Series

51: The Beginning Chapter 3 Part 1

Lindsay had already started her second day at the department. She had begun by reviewing all the reports required to be sent to the state every month. As soon as Lindsay started, she realized that the sheriff’s department was behind by several months. She even found a letter from the state informing the previous sheriff of the oversight. Lindsay was now up to her elbows in paperwork, trying to fix the mess. She had also spent a good deal of her time on the phone, finding out how bad things were. They were bad. Far worse than she had anticipated. All of this was making her wonder about the real reason the old sheriff had resigned. That was only a brief thought because, just then, Little Bob walked into her office.

He sat in a chair in front of her desk and asked, “Why haven’t you redecorated yet?” He was looking at all the taxidermy trophies on the walls that no one had a chance to remove yet.

She just looked at him. The look on her face made it clear as to the kind of day she was having. He wrinkled his forehead after he saw the look on her face.

“Bob, who was in charge of filing all this stuff with the state?” she asked as she motioned to the piles on her desk.

“The sheriff always said he did it. Why?” he answered.

“Because it has not been done for months, and what has been done has the wrong information.”

Bob let out a low whistle. “No wonder you look like you are in a bad mood.”

“Not really in a bad mood, just a little frustrated,” Lindsay said as she leaned back in her chair and picked up her coffee cup. “You think you can help me redecorate a little and find a place to put all this stuff that’s on the walls? If I don’t get it out of here, it is going to give me nightmares.”

“Sure. The dumpster was emptied this morning. I’m sure they would all fit nicely in there,” Little Bob said with a huge smile on his face.

“No. We’d better not do that but thank you for the offer. Just see if you can find a closet somewhere. I still don’t know who owns it or if they will want it back,” Lindsay answered. “But can you please move that deer head over the door now? Every time I see it, I feel like it is staring at me.”

Little Bob laughed. “I am so glad I am not the only one that feels that way about it.”

Even though Little Bob was in uniform and could have had someone of a lower rank do the job, he immediately went to work clearing space in a closet to get all the stuffed and mounted animals out of what was now Lindsay Gold’s office. He had not told anyone, but he was thrilled Lindsay had taken over as sheriff. Little Bob had always liked the way she worked with the citizens of the county when she was a deputy and even before that. He had also tried to convince the old sheriff not to fire her, but he did not listen.

Lindsay could hear Little Bob and Cat talking but could not understand what they were saying. Then she saw them walking toward her office with a ladder and some boxes. She did not even know how long it had been since Little Bob had left her office, but she knew it had not been more than a few minutes. They came in and set up the ladder right inside the door. Little Bob climbed the ladder and lifted the deer head off the wall, handing it to Cat.

“Thank you both for taking that thing down. It was giving me the creeps,” Lindsay said.

Cat turned it and looked at it in the face. “It does have a weird expression. I have always hated it, too. It’s like it stares at you no matter where you are standing. The eyes just follow you.” She was already putting it headfirst into one of the boxes before she ever finished talking.

Little Bob climbed down the ladder. “Don’t worry. Cat and I will get the rest of these down real quick as long as it doesn't bother you,” he said as he stepped to the floor.

“Please do. It won’t bother me at all. I could use a little break. My eyes are starting to cross from staring at forms and the computer screen,” Lindsay answered.

She looked at Cat, who wore skin-tight clothes and six-inch heels once again. Lindsay was amazed that Cat’s hair and make-up were perfect. Cat had worked her regular eight-hour day shift, came in overnight for a few hours, and returned to work at 8 a.m. She looked like she had not missed a minute of sleep and was perfectly put together. Lindsay could not help but think she needed to get some tips from her about how to do that. Just then, the phone at the front desk rang. Cat ran to the phone, making Lindsay shake her head. She knew if she tried that in those heels, she would only hurt herself.

“How did that call to Ms. Johnson’s house go last night? I heard it was you and Andy. Why were you with Andy, anyway?” Little Bob fired off without pausing.

“How did you know about that call?” Lindsay asked.

“I could tell you that because I take my job seriously and keep informed about everything so I can pass it on to you. However, the real reason is that my mother called me this morning. She and Ms. Johnson go to church together. You seem to have made quite an impression on her, and she is hard to impress,” Little Bob answered.

“Well, thankfully, she was fine, but something damaged her phone box at the back of her house. As far as why I was with Andy, it was because Andy came to my house yesterday evening. It seems as though Big Bob had told him that if he did not come to talk to me, I would fire him. The call came in while Andy was still at my house. He wasn’t that familiar with that area, so I went with him and drove,” Lindsay said. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

Little Bob was still taking things off the walls as he asked, “Why did Big Bob tell him that? I mean, besides the fact he wanted to mess with the poor guy.”

“I think that was his only reason. I have to say that Andy surprised me. He did pretty well. He was able to answer my questions and even ask me a few questions. We do need to work on him getting better with women, but we need to be nice about it. The last thing we need is for him to have a nervous breakdown,” Lindsay told him.

Little Bob stepped off the ladder again, walked over to a chair in front of her desk, and sat down. He looked like he was trying to figure out how to say something.

“Lindsay, my mother told me what the call was. Was one of those things out there?” Little Bob asked.

“I don’t know. We didn’t see anything,” Lindsay said, staring at her desk. “I can tell you that it smelled the same. Andy smelled it too, and so did Ms. Johnson.”

“Why would it rip out her phone?”

“I don’t know. I doubt that it was actually trying to make it so Ms. Johnson couldn’t call anyone, even though it looked that way. I think it was just a random act,” Lindsay replied.

Little Bob stood up and walked back over to the wall where he had been removing things. Lindsay was thankful he did not push things more. He was among the few people who believed her and had been on her side when she was fired. She heard the click of Cat’s high heels and saw her approaching her office.

“So, what attacked the old lady’s house last night?” Cat asked as she walked back over to where Little Bob was working.

“Seriously, that is how you ask?” Lindsay asked, shocked at how blunt Cat had been.

“Sorry, but I figured it was easier to get it out there than to beat around the bush,” Cat said.

“One, please refer to her as Ms. Johnson or even Rita. Next, I don’t know what it was. It was an animal of some kind. That is all I know. Which reminds me, I need to call the conservation department about what happened last night,” Lindsay told her.

“I called conservation last night after you asked me to call the phone company for her. The game warden was the one who just called. He went out there this morning and had no idea what it was. He said there was still a strong smell of something, but he couldn’t say what it was,” Cat informed her and Little Bob.

“Sounds like it was one of them again,” Little Bob said without turning from what he was doing.

“Them?” Cat asked, confused.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lindsay told her.

Little Bob and Cat continued to remove the trophies off the walls as Lindsay continued with her paperwork. She was trying to focus on it but was having difficulty doing so. She knew that people would be asking her all kinds of questions. What happened to the old sheriff? Why was she fired? Why was she asked to be the interim sheriff? She knew she needed to be able to have diplomatic answers to any questions. Quite frankly, a diplomatic explanation for what happened to the old sheriff was starting to look like that would be a hard one.

As she was going through the stacks of reports and information that should have been filed months earlier, she was finding things that did not make sense. There were far more discrepancies than could be written off as human error, simple mistakes, or even blatant carelessness.

“Cat,” Lindsay said, looking up from her paperwork, “Where is our chief deputy? I have not seen him since I took over.”

Cat turned toward her. “He is on vacation for the next three weeks. The sheriff approved his vacation request just minutes before he resigned.”

“Why would the sheriff give the chief deputy three weeks of vacation then resign minutes later?” Lindsay said as she rubbed her forehead.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t make sense of that either,” Cat answered.

“Bob, do you know anything about it?” Lindsay asked Little Bob.

“I have no idea, but that definitely sounds wrong. You want me to call Big Bob and see if he knows anything about it?” he asked Lindsay.

“That would be great. Would you do that now? I keep looking at all of this, and things are not adding up,” Lindsay said as she motioned to all the stacks of paper on her desk.

“Not a problem,” Little Bob said as he took the last trophy, a stuffed squirrel, off the wall and handed it to Cat to put in a box.

Little Bob and Cat gathered up the boxes and ladder and left Lindsay’s office. Lindsay knew she was lucky to have them working there during the day. Even if Lindsay was not there for some reason, things were in good hands. She continued going through the forms and reports that were piled around her. The numbers were off on everything. Some of the reports had been done but had not been submitted to the state. Those reports did not match what had been done in the office. The number of crimes, the types of crimes, the number of tickets, and the demographic to which tickets had been issued were all wrong. Now, she was wondering if any of the previous ones were correct. How long had this been going on? Why was the better question? Just then, a knock on her open door interrupted her train of thought. Cat was standing there.

“Sheriff, there is a gentleman by the name of Wren here to see you. Would you like me to bring him back?” Cat asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

Cat returned to the counter before returning with Wren to Lindsay’s office. Wren followed Cat to the door, and she watched him walk into Lindsay’s office with her eyebrow raised before turning and walking back to the front counter. He looked at Lindsay’s desk and shook his head.

“Wow. After looking at that desk, I hope you’re not mad at me because I told you to take this job,” Wren said.

Lindsay mustered a half-smile. “Of course, I’m not mad at you.” She stood and walked over to him and gave him a quick kiss. “This is a nice surprise. What are you doing here?”

Wren closed the door behind him, then said, “I brought you something that I think you will want to read.” He handed her a file that was worn and aged.

Lindsay took it and started to read as she walked back to her desk and sat down. It was a report that had been written a few years after the military base was established. She looked up at Wren, who was now sitting in the chair across from her. She kept reading the file and found it contained information on an attack that took place on the base.

The attack had occurred in a heavily wooded training area. A soldier had been taking part in a training exercise when he became separated from his group and came across a large, unknown animal. The creature was approximately eight feet tall and five hundred pounds. It walked on two legs, was covered in dark brown fur, and had a horrible stench. It had charged the soldier while letting out a loud scream before it attacked him. The soldier had been injured so severely that he was discharged from the military because he could no longer perform his duties.

Lindsay looked up at Wren. She did not know what to say. She wanted to know where he had gotten the file. Why had he let her see it? Also, to say thank you. She knew he had always believed her when she said there were things in the county that did not make sense and she could not explain. He had seen some of them himself.

“Thank you,” she said. That was the first thing she could get out. “Where did you get this?”

“After the call last night, I spent this morning digging through files that could be made public. I thought you should see that. I had the feeling that it would make complete sense to you,” Wren answered her. “Of course, you know that if anyone were ever to ask about this file, either it doesn’t exist or it was a misidentified bear,” He added with a smile.

“Of course I do. And any strange lights in the sky are either swamp gas or the planet Venus,” she said, smiling back at him.

Wren stood up to leave. Lindsay stood and walked over to him, handing him the file. Wren leaned over and kissed her on her forehead.

“You know I love you, right?” he asked her.

“I know. I love you too,” Lindsay answered.

Wren left the office, and Lindsay went back to her paperwork.

After a few minutes, she heard the door chime on the main door and saw Big Bob walk in. He was in uniform even though he was not scheduled to be at work for a few more hours. She saw him walking toward her office.

“Little Bob called me and said you have some questions about our previous, illustrious leaders bailing like a bunch of rats on a sinking ship,” Big Bob said as he chewed on a toothpick.

“Well, that isn’t exactly how I would have put it, but yes,” she answered. “Have a seat and tell me what you know about this mess, including why nothing was submitted to the state for the past few months.”

“Well, as far as the stuff that should have gone to the state, the sheriff always said he did that. I didn’t know anything about the chief deputy going on vacation or the sheriff quitting until I came to work the next day. I can tell you that it all happened in the middle of the night. Don’t ask me why anyone would ask for a vacation in the middle of the night. And if the sheriff knew he was going to quit, why would he give the chief deputy vacation for three weeks right when the department would need him the most?” Big Bob replied.

Lindsay looked at Big Bob, shaking her head as she spoke. “From what I have been able to tell, this department doesn’t mean much to either of them. If the chief deputy ever comes back, which I doubt he will, he will not have a job. He refused to take over as sheriff when the county commissioners spoke with him, and now I know why. He even put on a show and told them he would rather quit than be sheriff. That is like the vice president of the United States resigning after something happened to the president rather than taking over. If you don’t want the possible responsibility, don’t take the job,” she ranted. “Sorry. It has been a long day so far, and it feels like it keeps getting longer.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I wouldn’t take your job. I told them to talk to you, and I’m glad they did,” Big Bob answered. He stood up and walked out, not asking if she needed anything else.

Lindsay did not say anything else to him. He made it clear he did not know much, so he would not say much. She liked Big Bob. He would always say what was on his mind. He loved to talk, but he would not tell you anything that he did not know as fact. She kept working on the stacks of paper on her desk. She was taking notes and keeping out reports that had the wrong information. She understood mistakes happen, but there was no way that many mistakes could happen by accident. She finally reached a point where she could stop for the day and finish in the morning. It was after 5 p.m., yet Cat was still doing paperwork at the front counter.

“Cat, what are you still doing here? Didn’t you get off at four?” Lindsay asked.

“My relief has not come in yet,” Cat answered, wrinkling her nose. “I am pulling up the time cards for all the dispatchers and finding that we have a couple who never seem to be here on time or for their full shift.”

“OK, good. I was just going to suggest that,” Lindsay said. “Has Andy come on duty yet?”

“He has. He came on shift at 15:45. You know he is polite, smart, and not bad to look at. I might ask him out if he could talk to me or look me in the face. Now that I think about it, the talking thing might not be bad,” Cat said with a wicked smile.

“For now, try not to mess with him too much. We are going to be working on the whole not-able-to-talk-to-women thing,” Lindsay told her. “I am heading home. I locked my office so no one can move any of the mess on my desk. Please guard it with your life.”

“I will give my life for your paperwork, I promise,” Cat laughed. “Try to have a good night.”